Migraines
by The Chthonic Professor
Summary: On the night of Naruto's twelfth birthday, he's found wallowing in his misery by Ino. That night, a spark is lit between the two. Naruto has made Ino curious, and that's never really been a good thing. Is it really her fault, though? Naruto is giving her so much to be curious about, after all. When had the hyperactive blond become such a mysterious dark horse?


**_Migraines_**

 ** _The Chthonic Professor_**

 ** _Summary:_** _On the night of Naruto's twelfth birthday, he's found wallowing in his misery by Ino. That night, a spark is lit between the two. Naruto has made Ino curious, and that's never really been a good thing. Is it really her fault, though? Naruto is giving her so much to be curious about, after all. When had the hyperactive blond become such a mysterious dark horse?_

 ** _AN (25/04/16):_** _Not an update (yet), just decided to fix a couple of spelling errors and awkward sentences._

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _I don't own Naruto. I also don't own any of the songs that I use as chapter titles for this story._

 ** _Side Note:_** _For anyone who's curious, Migraines was inspired by a song, of the same name, by Twenty One Pilots. Not my favourite song, and not one of their best songs either, but I thought it was rather… fitting._

-.-

 ** _Chapter One - Blurry Faces_** _(Twenty One Pilots)_

-.-

In the fading twilight, high above the happily celebrating streets of Konoha, sat twelve year old, to the day, Uzumaki Naruto. Nestled between two of the massive stone locks of the Yondaime Hokage's unruly hair, Naruto made a figure that heavily contrasted with the image that he allowed most of the village to see.

He sat there with his jumpsuit unzipped, the sleeves tied around his waist, leaving his shoulders bare to face the elements. Despite the fact that there was a slight nip to the wind this high up in the air, Naruto didn't seem to care at all. His face seemed almost serene as a breeze kicked up, ruffling his own unruly blond locks and making his too-large black shirt flutter slightly.

Naruto didn't know how long he'd been up here, sitting on the Yondaime's head. He'd been thinking, as he always did, on this day. Every year it was the same.

October the tenth. The day he'd been born. The day his parents had died.

The night of the Kyuubi attack.

The rest of Konoha was celebrating the defeat of the almighty Demon Fox at the hands of their beloved Yondaime Hokage. Naruto? Naruto was grieving. Grieving the blurry faces of people he'd never met, never seen, would never know. He grieved for his parents, yes, but he also grieved for every single person who'd fallen under the onslaught of the Nine-Tailed menace.

The Nine-Tailed menace which just-so-happened to be sealed in his gut.

Just then, he was torn from his thoughts at the sound of someone calling his name.

"Naruto?"

It wasn't a voice he recognized well, but it was definitely feminine, of that he was sure. Turning his head to glance at the forest behind him, Naruto was able to spot his classmate, Yamanaka Ino, standing just inside the tree-line.

"Ino?" He questioned. As if he'd beckoned for her, Ino stepped forwards and out of the shadows of the trees.

In the dying light of the sun, Naruto could clearly make out the two tear tracks running down Ino's cheeks, as well as her slightly smudged makeup, despite the effort it seemed Ino had taken to hide the evidence of her tears. Her hair was done up in a beautiful bun, with two glass chopsticks stuck through it to keep it in place, and she was wearing an elegant sky-blue kimono patterned with white flower petals.

"What-" Ino cut herself off as her voice trembled slightly. She took a second to swallow hard, and then tried again. "What are you doing up here, Naruto?" She popped a hip out to the side and propped her hand on it, tilting her head slightly as she asked him the question. For just a moment, Naruto's eyes were drawn by the slight swaying motion of her ponytail.

Her words, however, didn't fool him. Naruto had more than enough practice with masks to notice when someone else was wearing one, and Ino's was showing more cracks than solid surface. That didn't mean he had to call her out on it though, so instead, Naruto did, as the people of the Elemental Nations would one day come to know, what Naruto did best.

He helped people.

Naruto patted a spot on the Yondaime's head directly beside him, clearly calling Ino over so that she could sit next to him. Ino eyed the spot beside her fellow blond warily.

Naruto, seeing the look on her face, simply rolled his eyes.

"Just sit down, Ino."

She crossed her arms for a moment and huffed, but complied nonetheless. Due to the fact that Naruto was sitting in between two of the massive stone locks of the Yondaime's hair, Ino had to sidle right up against her fellow blond to fit in between him and the rock.

As she shifted around a little to get comfortable, her legs dangling off the edge of the monument beside Naruto's, Ino noticed something with a slight jolt of surprise. Pushed up against him as she was, it wasn't hard for Ino to notice just how much extra space there was between Naruto and his black shirt. With how often he wore the jumpsuit, compounded with the way he fought during their taijutsu lessons at the academy, Ino had always assumed that the jumpsuit was baggy solely because it was made to be baggy. She'd never realized that Naruto was so thin. In fact, he was almost _painfully_ so.

For a couple of moments, the two simply sat there in silence. No words were exchanged between them as they sat on the edge of that dangerous precipice, gazing out onto the festivities of the happy people below.

Ino found the scene to be rather… calming, and noted the irony of the thought as she sat there shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee with Uzumaki Naruto.

"You asked me what I was doing up here, Ino." Naruto spoke suddenly, almost startling Ino out of her reverie. Without looking over at her, he continued, "I… was thinking."

Normally, Ino would've made a quip about how Naruto shouldn't think too hard or he'd hurt himself, but Ino took one look at his face and choked back the insult before she could make a sound.

Ino had seen many expressions on Naruto's face before - he was, after all, a very expressive person - yet she didn't think she'd _ever_ seen someone with such a melancholy look on their face before. So, instead of doing what she would normally do and insult Naruto, Ino read the situation for once in her life and, instead, asked, "What were you thinking about?"

For a second, Naruto looked at Ino with surprise written all over his face. Clearly he'd been expecting the insult that Ino had almost given. One part of her was slightly offended that he'd automatically assume she'd insult him. The other part was both sad and astonished that Naruto would expect an insult even when he was clearly feeling so down.

Maybe… just maybe, Ino had to reevaluate her views on Naruto as a person in general. Someone who was always expecting an insult clearly had some self-confidence issues, and this was coming from _Naruto_ off all people.

"I… I was thinking about my parents."

Ino raised her eyebrows and looked over to the blond boy sitting beside her. She wouldn't admit it out loud, but between the way the wind was ruffling his hair and the fact that he had his jumpsuit wrapped around his waist, Naruto looked really cute. He wasn't looking at her - his eyes were slightly glazed over as he stared down at the village below - so Ino took a moment to just admire the picturesque scene that he made, sitting up her atop the Hokage monument, the light of the dying sun illuminating his features. Glazed as they were, Ino noticed that his brilliant blue eyes were practically sparkling, and she felt more than heard her breath hitch in her throat.

She'd always been captivated by the intensity in Sasuke's charcoal eyes, by the anger and loneliness she could see there. It was then, at that moment, that she realized Sasuke's eyes held nothing on Naruto's. Naruto's eyes weren't angry, they were… resigned, and so, _so_ much lonelier than Sasuke's eyes would ever be.

Without looking at her, Naruto kept talking.

"I never knew them, y'know?" He spoke, and just by the sound of his voice Ino could tell that his throat had tightened with emotion.

She hadn't known, actually.

"They died twelve years ago, to the day." Ino's eyes darkened slightly. She knew what day it was today, and that could only mean one thing. "They died the day I was born."

That made Ino freeze. The day he was born…

"Today's your birthday?" He only nodded in response. "Well, happy birthday then, Naruto."

Naruto chuckled, a hollow, humourless sound. It was so sad that just hearing it was making Ino's heart break.

"I don't think anything could make today a happy day." Naruto glanced over to her without moving his head, but the immense pain that Ino could see in that single cerulean eye was making tears well up in her own. Naruto looked away from her and shook his head, staring down at his lap. "I remind them of the fox, y'know?" When Naruto said 'them' he motioned to the entirety of the village below them with a sweep of his hand.

"Because of the day I was born. Because of these." With a gentle movement, Naruto brushed the three odd birthmarks on his right cheek, and Ino felt her heart go out to the boy.

"My parents died today. They died protecting the village against the nine-tailed fox, and because of something out of my control, I can't even mourn with the rest of the village." Now there were tears streaming down his face, one of his hands clenched tightly into a fist, and Ino felt her heart go out to the boy. He pulled his legs up from where they were dangling over the edge of the monument and wrapped his arms around his knees.

"I don't even know what they look like, y'know? I don't have any pictures, or memories, nothing. I try and picture them in my mind sometimes." Naruto scrubbed away the tears on his face with the palm of his hand.

"Was my dad blond like me, or was it my mom? Was it both of them? Were neither of them blond? Was my dad big and strong, or was he a total wuss? Was my mom pretty, like a super-model, or was she tiny and skinny and always smiling? Were they happy together? Did they even want to have a child at all? Were my mom's eyes blue, or my dad's? Do I look like my dad, or my mom, or a mixture of both? Did they have a lot of friends, or were they loners?"

Naruto took a deep shuddering breath, and in that moment of pause Ino realized there were tears streaming down her cheeks.

"It hurts." Naruto buried his face into his knees and clutched at his chest with one hand. "It hurts to know that I'm never going to know these things, and I'm not even allowed to mourn the blurry faces of my parents because my own stupid face reminds the villagers of the bloody-damned fox that killed them!" Naruto was practically screaming his sorrow to the heavens, and Ino had to clamp both of her hands over her mouth to silence the sobs that were trying to escape her throat.

Never in a million years would she have guessed that Naruto, smiling, cheerful prankster Naruto, was bottling up so much sorrow, so much pain and loneliness, inside. Sitting there, head between his knees, eyes scrunched up tight and teeth bared in a dark grimace of pain, Naruto looked broken.

With a start, Ino realized she was really _seeing_ Uzumaki Naruto. She was finally seeing the trees for the forest; the sorrow of a boy who wanted love, who wanted to experience the one emotion that had eluded him his entire life.

She saw Uzumaki Naruto for what he really was. She saw the boy who'd had to fight, tooth and nail, with an abundance of sweat, blood, and tears just to gain the attention of the few people who'd acknowledged him in his short life.

Let it be known that Yamanaka Ino, as young and immature as she seemed, was indeed a brilliant girl. She was, after all, the daughter of Yamanaka Inoichi and heir to the Yamanaka clan.

"Naruto…" Ino called her fellow blond's name, having had a stroke of inspiration at her sudden thoughts. Hearing his name, Naruto bit back a sob, swallowed hard, and looked at Ino without turning his head from his knees. "… Will you go to the Kyuubi festival with me?"

Naruto blinked once. Twice.

" _What?_ " Ino decided not to comment on the way his voice cracked as he spoke.

"You're pretty good at using the Henge technique, right?" She didn't wait for his confirmation before continuing, "Then, use a henge to change the colour of your hair and hide you birthmarks and we can go to the festival."

Naruto was simply looking at her like she was some sort of alien who'd come down from outer space.

"W-what… Ino, I… what?" He would've continued, but Ino interrupted him.

"Nuh-uh, now way are you turning down Yamanaka Ino, buddy." Ino reached out and grasped the hand that Naruto had been using to clutch his chest, intertwining his fingers with her own. "Come on, we're going to the festival."

Ino stood up, dusted off her bum with one hand, and started dragging Naruto to the stairs leading down from the Hokage monument into the village below.

"First order of business, we're getting you a kimono! No way are you going to a festival with _me_ wearing that orange jumpsuit of yours!" Ino hollered over her shoulder, laughing at the positively stupefied expression on his face.

In the rising twilight, neither blond noticed the fact that, for just a moment, Naruto's eyes had flashed a light shade of violet while he'd poured his heart out atop the Yondaime's stone head.

-.-

While running down the steps of the Hokage mountain, Naruto had used the henge technique to change his hair from bright blond to a very dark shade of red, almost black, and hid his birthmarks from view.

The two of them had run all the way to Ino's favourite clothing store, where she began picking out different kimono for Naruto to try on and wear.

"Hey, Ino? How does this look?" Naruto called from inside the changing rooms. Ino rolled her eyes.

"You're going to have to come out if you want me to see how it looks."

Ino heard Naruto take a deep breath from behind the curtain. She watched as his hand appeared on one side, and slowly tugged the curtain out of the way. Ino couldn't help but gasp at what she saw.

Without his headband on, Naruto's bangs flopped down to hang just above his bright blue eyes. The reddish-black tinge that his hair had taken on under the henge complimented his kimono perfectly. It was jet-black in colour, with red trim, and was patterned with falling autumn leaves in beautiful hues of red, yellow and orange. On his feet Naruto was wearing black socks and a brand new pair of traditional wooden geta sandals, which caused him to wobble slightly as he walked.

"Is it that bad?" He questioned, hearing her gasp, as he fiddled with the unfamiliar long, wide sleeves of the kimono.

"No, not at all!" Ino shook her head. "It actually looks really good on you, Naruto." Ino was sure that she must've been blushing up a storm. Who would've guessed that Naruto would look so _good_ once he was out of that damnable orange eyesore?

"You really think so?" Naruto asked her, looking up at her shyly through his long bangs. Ino swore her heart was melting.

"Of course!" She grabbed him by the hand and dragged him over to the counter, where she beat Naruto to the punch by pulling out her gaudy purple wallet and paying for the kimono. Once they were out of the store, Naruto turned to Ino with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Ino, why'd you do that?" He asked as she continued to drag him around Konoha by the hand.

"Do what?" She asked him, faking an innocent expression.

"Why'd you pay for the kimono?" He frowned at her, while simultaneously trying to gauge where she was taking him based on their surroundings.

"Why? Because it's your birthday. Think of it as my birthday present to you." She smiled warmly at Naruto over her shoulder, and tried not to notice just how much her heart clenched when she saw tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.

"Thank you, Ino." He finally said, his voice filled with emotion and sincerity as he closed his eyes and smiled in happiness.

-.-

In the end, Ino had dragged Naruto all the way over to her place so that she could run inside and take a couple of minutes to reapply her makeup. It had only been a very light layer in the first place, but her tears had smudged it up, and she wasn't about to go out wearing smudged makeup.

That night would end up being one that Naruto would remember for the rest of his life as one of the best nights of his life. He and Ino had gone all around the village trying out different kinds of food and playing all kinds of games at the various stalls set up around the village.

Naruto had ended up winning Ino a little toad plushy at one of the stands, and it had been totally worth it to see the look on her face when he'd handed her the wart-covered creature. After that, they'd gone and eaten some candy apples, and Ino had smiled when she saw how content Naruto was to simply walk around the village with her, munching on that candy apple.

The final thing they'd done that night was watch the reenactment of the way the Yondaime Hokage had finally slain the Demon Fox, saving the village from certain doom. While Ino had been enraptured with the tale being woven by the villagers performing the spectacle, Naruto knew the story for the lie that it was. So, instead, he spent most of the spectacle watching Ino instead of the play itself.

The way her eyes and her face seemed light up every time she smiled, every time she laughed, made Naruto want to smile as well. The way they brushed shoulders, sitting side-by-side, made him want to take her hand in his own again. The way she looked, with her hair done up in a bun and her kimono flowing elegantly whenever she moved, took his breath away.

With a start, Naruto realized that, for most of the night, he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

That night, once both of them had parted ways and sequestered themselves into their rooms to finally head off to sleep, the only thought on their minds was of the other.


End file.
